Just a little note…

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He added that it was an inappropriate programme to broadcast live just two days after the suicide attacks on America, and should have been recorded and edited.…
The BBC’s Media Correspondent, Nick Higham, said there was a recognition in the corporation that the audience could have been more representative of wider opinion.

Besides the shouting and jeering from the audience, there are a few points I’d like to highlight. Note the number of people (including the panelists) who attribute their own hobbyhorse as the cause of 9/11. Also, note some curious rhetorical techniques on display.

At about 21:29 (in the first clip), a guy says American & British aircraft flying over the skies of Iraq and Yugoslavia have done so in defense of Kurds, Iraqi Shia and muslims in Kosovo and is promptly jeered and shouted down. The counter arguments seems to be “You have no idea!”, the idea that the only acceptable way to frame it is as killing muslims and that asserting things repeatedly makes it true.

At about 21:25 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says to applause “I have been stunned by the way Americans are so shocked at how many people really truly detest them around the world.”

Speaking for myself, I don’t care if someone detests Americans. Oh, imagine the burden it must be to forever be wondering who a majority of Namibians consider to be their Super-Best-Friend-Forever. Treating global politics like high school cliques really doesn’t seem like the best way to determine policies.

Unfortunate, yet hardly surprising, even to the most casual of observers.

And whilst I can understand (yet not agree with) the Left’s position not to send troops into Iraq in the first place – an argument, largely moot, for another day – what I don’t understand is their fervish desire to pull the troops out.

It always smacked of idealism, ideology, rather than hard-nosed practicality.

After all, what was so bad with having a US troop presence there to help maintain Iraq’s fragile democratic stability?

One could argue that I am biased because a) I am centre-right politically and b) because I live in South Korea, a nation that has had a US troop presence – some 37,00028,000 or so currently – since the armistice between North and South Korea and have seen what a permanent US troop presence looks like.

I am happy to accept those labels and can gladly tell you that such a presence ain’t that bad.

By and large, US bases in Korea – and Japan for that matter – haven’t been a problem.

Sure, issues pop up from time to time, but if one looks at the big picture, then a strong US presence here can only be seen as a good thing, a safe option, a pretty darn good insurance policy against North Korea trying anything major on.

Almost 60 years we’ve had US troops over here without any major problems. In fact, many major problems (a full-scale Nork attack comes to mind) have arguably been averted thanks to this presence.

So, why the rush to leave Iraq essentially free of any US military before even a decade is up and before, as is clear now, the job is done?

OK, so perhaps it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. US troops in Korea, aside from those stationed at the DMZ, aren’t on active duty as they were in Iraq.

However, it’s not a completely dissimilar situation. Perhaps a good analogy would be to compare mandarins and oranges.

US troops not only provided safety and stability in the fledgling democracy that is Iraq – a country still steeped with sectarian and tribal rivalries – but surely they also provided a deterrence to anybody or any groups who want to destabilise the nation.

What takes years to build can take mere seconds to destroy, and I fear a lot of hard work is being undone on the whim of a flawed, feel-good, ideology.

So why?

The only practical reason that I can see for Obama pulling his troops out of Iraq is that with an Iranian confrontation looming which includes action needed in Syria, Iraq frankly isn’t important enough any more or at best, an impractical option for a potentially over-stretched military.

Of course, Obama – a man of the progressive Left – can’t actually come out and say that but it is reasonably well-known to those who don’t just get their news from the MSM that Obama is actually more of a war-time president than Bush was, having committed more troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and for a longer period of time.

So whilst the MSM might play along with the “bringing the troops home” narrative, the evidence indicates this simply isn’t the case.

To someone who doesn’t know any better, it’s as if Russia, India, and China – all wannabe first chickens to the trough – are ganging up on America.**

PS Who wouldn’t love to be a fly on the wall listening in to what the US is really saying about China? Their ever-expanding use of soft power is in many ways, stuffing it all up for America. China must surely be becoming an ever-increasing pain in the neck.

This leaves Australia in an interesting position. Our main export partner is China. Our main ally is the US. We send China our goodies to help them get rich and rival America. We practice shooting our guns with America to help keep America on top.

And yet China and America are also so deep in each other’s pockets. America buys China’s goods. China buys America’s debt.

Fun times.

** I highly recommend reading The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom. Part of the book talks about the pecking order of nations.

I live in a city (and I use the term extremely loosely) named Frederick. Frederick, Maryland, to be exact. Frederick is located 45 miles west of Baltimore, 45 miles northwest of Washington, DC. There are somewhere between 50,000 and 75,000 people who live in greater Frederick/Walkersville/Braddock Heights/New Market. Metropolis it ain’t. In fact, up until the cost of housing in greater Washington pushed suburbia on Frederick, it was considered “the sticks”. Nowheresville. Residents of Frederick are referred to as “Frednecks“. You get the idea.

The Occupy movement, which started with Wall Street, evolved to include many cities in the US, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, Seattle, Cincinnati, Austin, Washington, and others. The main thing these cities have in common is that they are either state capitals or major population centers. And the main thing that Occupy protesters have in common is that they are leftist spoiled kids from the suburbs who think the world owes them a living.

So how do “Frederick, MD” and “Occupy” end up in the same sentence? Behold, Occupy Frederick!

Frederick has officially been occupied.

Members of Occupy Frederick set up tents and hung signs next to Carroll Creek on Market Street on Sunday afternoon in hopes of getting the word out about their Occupy Our Homes foreclosure event in early February.

Fifteen to 20 people braved below-freezing temperatures and trudged through snow in their winter coats, gloves and hats on Sunday, trying to stay warm while building awareness.

Building awareness. How very progressive! [cue puking noises]

I’m rather at a loss trying to figure out how left wing pukes “raising awareness” are going to fare among the Frednecks. Perhaps we Frednecks can raise THEIR awareness. Lessons they could learn include:

The live cattle export ban to Indonesia is the last straw for one of the Territory’s well known cattle families.Bullo River Station, located 800 kilometres south west of Darwin, has been put on the market.The 160,000-hectare property is well known as the home of the late author and cattle queen Sara Henderson.But her daughter Marlee Ranacher says with no income since late last year, the business is no longer viable.”It was a progression of things that led to it.”Last year there was a weight and class restriction set by the Indonesia Government… following a very very long record Wet season.”Then just as we were about to send some cattle off, with 24 hours notice, the entire industry was shut down.”I mean, most people get more notice when they lose a job, don’t they?”How exactly are we going to buy the diesel fuel that pumps water for the cattle?”Where do they go? Who feeds them? It’s really really hard.”

She pins the blame squarely on Julia Gillard, and makes a couple of extremely interesting points.

1: The ban is hitting at the critical time of the year for northern producers. Unless stock leave for feedlots now they will be trapped by the wet season. So even if Julia announces a “solution” in a months time there will be no way of shipping them off.

2: The ABC has colluded with animal rights groups to time this quite deliberately. She makes the claim the ABC has been sitting on the footage since January. I will send a query to 4 corners on this but dont expect an answer.

3: The land will be overstocked massively soon. There will be 2 seasons worth of cattle on the same land.

4: The excess cattle are unsaleable due to the 350kg weight limit on cattle. What will happen?

5: A whole seasons cattle will have to be shot.

I can’t emphasise enough listen to this interview, if you are strapped for time just listen to the last 1/2.

Its heartbreaking, Gillard and her green/4 corners mates should be pilloried for this, the deliberate destruction of a whole industry. Thousands out of work directly, and many, many more businesses ruined, truckies, helicopter musterers, feed lot owners. All ruined. Once that infrastructure is gone it will take decades to get back…. or Julia could declare it a national park… Just for Bob.

If you dont choke up hearing her say “we have to shoot them”… well you must be a greenie.

UPDATE: Bob Brown has announced his paries plans to completely stop ALL live exports.

From His speech to the national press club:

Rachel Siewert’s Live Animal Export (Slaughter) Prohibition Bill would stop the export of live animals for slaughter now – not in three years as in the Xenophon-Wilkie bill. Export of live animals too often ends up in cruelty and it also ships Australian jobs and profits off-shore;